235
Book · 2001
The Dark Room
Three linked narratives follow ordinary Germans before, during, and long after the Second World War. A photographer, a child crossing a ruined country, and a later descendant each confront what people see, ignore, and inherit.
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This is a complex text filled with ethical questions and paradoxes, yet Seiffert takes the wise decision of offering a simply phrased and understated narrative, made up of three distinct, thematically linked stories charting the loss of a nation's innocence.
Zoe Green on The Observer Lore is just 12 when the war ends. Following the arrest of her Nazi parents, she's responsible for shepherding her four younger siblings across a devastated Germany and home to Hamburg. In a novel that considers the knotty problem of German war guilt, Seiffert explores the impact of the Holocaust on ordinary lives.
From The Independent It is intelligent, but not difficult; it introduces all the right themes, asks the right questions, and is judicious without being judgmental. Most of all, it articulates clearly the crisis of representation - the difficulty of finding the right words and deeds to express culpability and contrition - that Germany has suffered for so long.
James Hopkin on The Guardian
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